


Isn't This Easy?

by tomano



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura (Voltron) Being an Asshole, Alternate Universe - High School, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gay Matt Holt, Happy Ending, I Love You, Lance (Voltron) Angst, M/M, Oblivious Lance (Voltron), Pidge | Katie Holt is So Done, Some Swearing, i suck at endings, i'm sorry matt, no beta we die like men, they have a one year difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21574564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomano/pseuds/tomano
Summary: "I make you happy Lance. I know I do. It's just- have you ever stopped to wonder that... just maybe? You belong with- with me? That you belong by me and Pidge's and Hunk's sides? That I- I could be the one you wake up in the mornings to? That I could be the one holding your hands through the school hallways? That I could be the one cheering you on for school games?" Matt stared at Lance then. His eyes fraught with desperation, searching through Lance's expression furiously for a sign._____________________________a highschool au fanfiction of latte inspired by taylor swift's You Belong With Me, because i'm gay for this ship.
Relationships: Matt Holt/Lance
Comments: 1
Kudos: 79





	Isn't This Easy?

**Author's Note:**

> i have no beta, and this is my first fanfiction on this site so please bear with me wlsmeodjfof

( _you're on the phone with your girlfriend, she's upset, she's going off about something that you said_ )

Matt should have expected this. He should have seen this coming from more than a mile away, and with all his intelligence, he isn't sure why he didn't. He could still hear Lance's whispered shouting from the kitchen. Matt clutched onto the Playstation controller tightly, like it was his lifeline. He held on to it so hard, he swore he could have dented it. Lance's tenor voice was stained with desperation. Matt could almost imagine his hands coming up to his brown curls atop his head to pull at them in distress. Pidge sat on the other side of the couch, going through her character's inventory with a thunderous look on her face. 

"Allura, please, don't do this-" Lance's heartbroken voice rang clearly through the house, and Matt felt more than he heard his breath hitch painfully in his chest. Pidge turned to him with a grimace etched upon her face. "Allura, I told you, I didn't do it! Who do you trust more, your boyfriend? or your boyfriend's ex-girlfriend?" 

Silence, in that moment, shouted loudly in Matt's face. The controller in his hand long forgotten as tears streamed down his face and Pidge could only watch forlornly at her brother's side profile. Every hiccup and sob in Lance's voice was like a dagger sticking itself into Matt's back, curling and twisting painfully in his chest and torturing him with phantom sensations. Between the car crash that cost Matt his leg, and Lance's own heartbreak, he wasn't sure which was more painful. 

"Fine. No, of course, you didn't mean it. See you," Lance shoved his phone inside his pocket, bringing up a hand to wipe the tear marks on his face and putting on a wobbly smile. Breathing in deeply, he speed-walked to the Holt living room and released a confused  huh upon seeing only Katie on the couch. He glanced around the room quickly, but the room bore no more signs of the older Holt sibling. The orange controller Matt was using clattered on the floor uselessly, thumb pads ripped out forcefully. "Where's Matt, Katie?" 

Katie turned a fiery glare upon Lance silently. Despite being bundled up in a big emerald sweater, Lance could see her curled up fists shaking ceaselessly. "Bring your couple fights somewhere else. They're not welcome in our nightly games. Nor is Allura. Leave."

Lance immediately brought up both arms to try and placate the younger, opening his mouth to utter an apology, but he was silenced by the girl's yell. "Leave! Now!" Lance could only take his things and wonder what he had done wrong. 

( _ dreaming about the day when you wake up a nd find that what you're looking for has been here the whole time _ )

Lance munched down on his burger, looking at Matt. Matt, with his golden hair and amber embers for irises. Matt with his ridiculously messy eating habits, and poor excuse of a fashion sense. Matt with his ability to brighten Lance's darkest days, and uncanny knowledge of Lance's every preference. Matt, with his almost psychic ability to understand Lance's slightest needs and wants. Matt, who was so out of Lance's league, that Lance could only listen on painfully as Matt went on sadly about finding no one worthy of his heart's time. 

Matt's eyes locked onto Lance's, his head cocked slightly to the right. "Like, do you get it, though? It's just- maybe it's because I'm a nerd? But I feel like no one gets me or my jokes, or my lines! I want a worthwhile love, you get me? I want someone I can wake up to in the morning, smiling down at me warmly. I want to go to college in the future, happy and content, knowing that we would both be pursuing something we love with the ones we love. Or maybe you don't get it! After all, lover boy Lance has always been in love with Allura, huh?" Lance chuckled though it felt like a hand was holding on to his heart, and trying to milk all the blood out of his spindly Latino body. 

Lance debated telling Matt the truth, just once. The truth about whose name was truly etched upon his heart, like a brand, or a scar. Something that would never go away. Then, just as quickly, Lance's intelligent side came through. How could Lance tell Matt that he didn't really "get it"? That Lance has been in a relationship with Allura for two years of his high school life because his denial for his love of Matt had reached godly levels? That Lance didn't understand the need to find a worthwhile love because to him, he'd already found it - in the man in front of him, still lamenting over love? No, Lance had already gotten this far. What more's a lifetime of denial? Because Matt deserved more than Lance could ever give him. Matt deserved the world, the stars, all the planets, and the whole galaxy. Lance would stick with what was within his reach - his high school's lead cheerleader and local rich kid. Allura's father owned Altea High, as well as Altea library, museum and mall. 

Maybe one day, Lance will be enough for Matt. Lance let out a snort at that thought, yeah right. Nothing would be enough for Matt. Matt was worth so much, and what was Lance, but just a Latino boy who got lucky? 

( _ Laughing on a park bench, thinking to myself, h ey isn't this easy? _ )

Lance's snorts were melodious to Matt's ears, as cheesy as that sounded. Matt would become the epitome of coagulated milk just for Lance. He would become whatever it took, just to make Lance smile. It was 7 in the morning, right before school started, and in all honesty, not even Matt was feeling up to it. Pidge was snoozing on Matt's right shoulder, hands tightened protectively around her laptop. Lance was laughing at one of Matt's jokes, his arms slung over the bench. "How are you so lively at ass o'clock in the morning?" Matt wondered aloud, baffled.

Lance quirked an eyebrow at him, smirk gracing his face beautifully. "It's seven. I wouldn't exactly call that a hellish hour," Matt's features took on an even more baffled expression. Lance laughed lightly, his chuckles resembling some kind of classical music melody Matt once heard when he was 11. "Oh come on, school isn't that bad! You're even better than me at it! Aren't you supposed to like school?" 

"Just because I'm good at school doesn't mean I like it, Lance. No one really likes nerds either."

"Yeah Lance, why are you hanging out with the nerds? Little jock latino, go hang out with your cheerleader girlfriend and your little jock group-" Pidge started muttering under her breath, only stopping when Matt harshly elbowed her stomach and caused her to bend over and cough out a lung. Lance had immediately decreased in size upon hearing her rant, bringing in his arms to close around himself and legs gravitating together, nearer to the rest of his body. Matt secretly cursed his little sister. 

An awkward silence descended upon the small group, and Matt wondered when their trio had started to resemble less of a family and more of a puzzle that had somehow changed it's pieces halfway, and now wouldn't fit together just right. Matt laughed into the quiet, and brought up a hand to rub the back of his neck. "She's- she's just joking, Lance. You can have friends other than us, you know that right?" 

Lance laughed uneasily. "I know. I have other friends but, this two of you will always be my go-to. Shiro and Keith and Lotor are great but, there's a wall sometimes that I can't see or climb over. It's always so easy to talk to you two, and I've never had that with the rest. Especially you, Matt. I-" Matt stopped breathing. His heartbeats thudded resoundingly in his ears, like a percussion ensemble. "I have a chemistry with you that I can't seem to find anywhere else." Lance finished softly, looking away to his left. Matt couldn't look away from the Cuban's smooth mocha skin, the freckles on his cheeks forming little constellations, the oceans in his eyes seeming to form storms with the conflict reflected in them. Lance was beautiful. 

Being around Lance was the easiest thing to do, it felt as easy as breathing. As essential as taking in oxygen. As instinctive as the act itself. Being around Lance didn't need Matt to think or ponder deeply about what to think, or what to wear, or how to act. Lance was Lance, even when he was popular. Even when he was with someone else. Even when Matt could never have him.

( _ if you can see that I'm the one who understands you, been  here all along, so why can't you see? yo _ _u belong with me_ )

Lance couldn't count back to when his friendship with Matt first started. Was it when he was 7, when he had first met Matt in preschool? Was it when he was 5, when his family had first migrated to America and moved in to the neighbourhood? or was it when he was 6 and a half, when he had first started frequenting the closest playground to play with others his age? He couldn't remember the exact age he first started being friends with Matt, but he remembers everything he's helped Matt through.

He can recall every little breakdown Matt has had through middle school and high school. Like that time when Matt started doubting his intellectual ability and had a bad case of imposter syndrome, and Lance skipped his classes in his last year of middle school, just to help Matt with his anxiety attack in his high school. He remembers that time when Matt started getting scared of messing up that trumpet solo in his band competition, and skipping an exam just to go with Matt's middle school band and help Matt gain some confidence. He remembers skipping a date with Allura just to go play games with Matt and Katie, just so that Katie and him could yell at Matt to gain some balls and stand up for himself and stop letting jocks use him for homework help. He remembers skipping football practice just to stay with Matt in the library and help him study for the next day's spanish exam (he got killed by Shiro, the captain, but it was totally worth it). 

Through all of that, Lance thought he'd always be the one Matt went to for help. That he understood, explicably, that Lance knew him the most. That Lance would always be there for him, that Lance would be his rock to depend on for however long Matt would keep him around. Lance guessed though, that with this new development, maybe Matt wouldn't be keeping him around for much longer. Katie had called Lance after football practice, yelling at him again. Recently though, when wasn't she yelling at him? Lance stood apart from the team, listening to her rant with wide eyes. Matt had gotten an anxiety attack and had gone straight to Katie instead. 

"I thought you told me you'd be there for him," Katie hissed, her boyish voice taking on a cold tone. "So why is it that he went to me instead of you? What did you do this time, lover boy? What have you done to my brother?" Lance felt the world shatter around him. His knees were suddenly weak, his thighs shaking. He heard a faint ringing sound reverberate in his skull, as if he had just been impacted by an extremely powerful explosion. Lance thought back to the last time he had been there for Matt, and realised with an unpleasant shock that he hadn't really been there for Matt at all this year. With all his football practice, dates with Allura, hangouts with the team, he didn't manage to squeeze in time for the boy who he had promised he'd always be there for. He didn't make time for the boy he swore he'd protect, for the boy he thought belonged with him. Belonged to him. 

Lance breathed a shaky breath into the phone's speaker. "Maybe I don't understand him as well as I'd believed, Katie." He felt a tear slip from his eye at that admission, and faintly, he could hear Keith snickering at him and asking if Allura had broken up with him again. Lance couldn't bring himself to really care. The man he loved had just had an anxiety attack, and he wasn't there to help. Matt hadn't wanted him to be there. And that realisation smashed onto him like a ton of bricks, all at once. And  _ damn _ , does it hurt.

"Yeah, maybe you don't. Whatever you did to make him sob into my fucking shoulder and mutter incoherent nonsense into the air, I hope you're happy you did it." Katie managed to complete her sentence through clenched teeth, and hung up on Lance. Lance felt his phone slip to the ground, through his fingers. Through the confused fog his mind had created, he heard Keith utter a distressed 'fuck!' as he came closer to Lance and saw the tears openly streaming down his face. Lance doesn't remember ever feeling this far apart from Matt before. Lance doesn't remember ever fighting with Katie. Lance doesn't remember ever feeling like he had fucked up quite this badly. 

( _ i'm the one who makes you laugh, when  you know you're about to cry. and  i know your favorite songs, and  you tell me about your dreams, i  think i know where you belong, i  think i know it's with me _ )

Matt was stuck in a weird situation. It was lunch period, he was sitting in between Pidge and Hunk on one side of the lunch table, and on the opposite side sat Lance, Allura, Shiro and Keith. Hunk and Lance had proposed playing a game of '20 questions' with a little twist - to see who knew Lance the best. Lance would write a set of 20 questions, and read them aloud for two to hear. Then, the two opposing players would say their predictions on what Lance's answer would be to the question - the fastest, correct answer would award the person with one point. This round had Matt against Lance's own girlfriend, Allura. Now, despite Matt being one of Lance's best friends (other than Pidge), Matt had thought he would lose. After all, weren't couples supposed to know everything about each other? 

So why was Allura failing so miserably? 

This weird situation, was really, very weird. Lance was asking the most basic of questions, but so far, Matt was winning by a landslide. He'd be overwhelmingly happy about this if Allura weren't trying to kill him with her glares. Lance was frowning slightly at her, and sending apologetic glances to Matt and Pidge (who was restraining herself barely with Hunk's help). "What's my favourite colour?" Lance asked, breaking in to the latest staring (read: glaring) contest between Matt and Allura.

Allura said "Blue!" the next instant. Lance stared at her with a raised brow and a small smirk upon his face. 

"Finally, you get something right, huh, babe?"

"She's wrong." 

Allura and Lance turned to Matt. Allura had on the coldest glare she had yet, and Lance looked on at him with surprise. Pidge beside him turned to him in shock, but her brow was raised as if asking him to elaborate. 

"Your favourite colour is orange. Not a lot of people know it, and apparently, neither do you. But it is. Your first instinct for sweaters and jackets is to buy them in orange first, then get them in blue. Your room walls are orange-coloured too. When you paint, your favourite colour to use for the sky is orange, not blue. When you buy phone cases, you buy both blue and orange, but you only buy blue because most orange ones aren't the right shade. Your favourite crystal is the carnelian, which is the same shade of orange that you seem to love. Your favourite colour is pumpkin orange, not blue." Matt finished, staring at Allura the whole time. He wanted her to fail. He wanted her to see, and understand, that Matt knew Lance best. That Matt belonged with Lance. That Lance belonged with Matt. That Allura shouldn't even try to intimidate him, and that she shouldn't really even bother. After all, this whole game just showed everyone in this table how compatible Matt and Lance really were. 

And for the first time, Matt had a rooted understanding so deep, that he could have been born with it. Matt was the one who was there for Lance when Lance got dumped by Allura ten times in two years, Matt was the one who cheered him up with their favourite Playstation games after every single failed football game and bad date. Matt was the one who managed to make Lance laugh until he sprayed sprite out of his nose. Matt was the one who helped the McClains babysit Nadia and Sylvio when their family was having a get-together at a carnival, but Nadia and Sylvio were too young. Matt knew that when Lance was sad, his nose would crinkle up like a bunny and his ears would wiggle. Matt knew that when Lance giggled, he would bring up his hands to cover his mouth because he thought his laugh made him look ugly. Matt knew that Lance spent hours agonising over his outfits before every date with Allura because he was scared she'd yell at him for not dressing his best again. Matt knew Lance like how he knew all the digits of pi. Perfectly. 

And with that understanding, came the inexplicable fact that Matt might have been waiting for his whole life. That Matt suddenly knew, without a doubt in his mind, that Lance belonged with him. Not with Allura, not with Keith, not with Shiro. With Matt. And like hell was Matt going to just give Allura what she wanted. No, she would have to work for it. Because Matt wasn't going to just give his Lance away, like some stupid rag-doll. That wasn't what Lance was worth. Lance was worth so much more than what her father and uncle could afford. Lance was worth more than her various Gucci and Prada bags, more than her wardrobe cost. Lance was the universe, the land beneath their feet, the water flowing through the plants, the oxygen in Matt's veins. Lance was important, and Lance was essential, and Lance couldn't just be treated with the same careless abandon that Allura had been treating him through their two-year, on-and-off relationship. He was not some shirt that she could decide not to like one day, and then wear it the next. 

Matt was going to make sure that Lance knew his worth, and convince him that he belonged with Matt, even if he spent years trying to do just that. 

"You don't deserve Lance. Lance is worth everything in the damn universe, and you've been treating him like he's the trash beneath your feet. Wake up for once, or else someone might just take your  _ dear Lance _ away from you, hm?" 

( _ have you ever thought, just maybe? You belong with me, you belong with me _ )

Lance stared at the cafeteria doors swinging wildly. He was still trying to compute what just happened, and was still kind of slow to come to terms with what just happened. Had- had Allura really just stormed off? Had Matt really told Allura that she wasn't the right person for him? Lance honestly felt like pinching himself because it all felt like some weird scheme his brain would cook up at two in the morning, in an unrealistic dream. He would've, if it weren't for the fact that right after Matt had said coldly to Allura's face that she doesn't "deserve Lance", he had instantly turned pale and ran straight to the school's exit doors. 

Katie and Hunk stared after Matt in amazement, and started clapping in unison while slowly turning to each other. Katie slowly began, in utter shock and bewilderment, "Did my brother finally get his head out of his ass and tell Allura that she doesn't deserve Lance?" 

"Katie, bro, I think your brother just confessed to Lance. In front of Allura!" Hunk proclaimed, staring at Lance in reverence. Lance squeaked.

"Dude, my brother just roasted Allura alive on a campfire and watched as she turned into ashes. And then, decided to throw her ashes into the ocean and fed it to the sharks. I didn't know he had it in him," Katie grumbled, putting her head on the table as she stared at Lance trying to figure out what exactly was going on and how it had all unfolded like this. "Though, he still ran away afterwards. That was stupid, and kinda cowardly, but it's still redeemed by his blow up at Allura. Anyway, Lance, how long are you going to stare at those doors for?" 

Lance broke out of his reverie, and stared at her dumbly for five seconds. "Oh. Dios mios. I need to run after him. Dios mios, that absolute idiot. He can't just- please excuse me, ladies and gents, I have a potential boyfriend to run after!" He heard Keith snort, and Katie release a grateful sigh into the air. Hunk shouted a 'good luck' at him as he ran through the doors of the school, going past the school's gates and rushing towards the Holt house. Lance felt his heart pounding strongly in his chest as if it could break out of it's skeleton confines. He swore to the highest power there was to allow him to catch up to Matthew Holt before he could do something stupid, and lock himself in his room in fear and anxiety. The same damned charming fool, who had just stood up for Lance in a public setting and had alluded to his own crush on Lance. 

Lance didn't know how much time had passed, but all he knew was that by the time he was in Matt's bedroom, he was sweating and heaving in the cool air essential for his life. He stared at Matt's stunned figure sat on his bed, his long musical hands holding on to the orange blanket. He was twisting the fabric over and over, weaving it in complicated patterns - alternating between weaving in his hands to fingering harshly on the mattress deaf melodies along to his band pieces. "You. You absolute idiota. You can't just run off like that after suggesting to everyone sitting on the damn table that you like me!" 

"And who says I can't?!" Matt replied, affronted. Lance immediately turned a look of absolute confusion to the chestnut-haired man. "Why can't I run away when I know what you'll say? That you'll just tell me that you can't like me back because you'll always love Allura, that you'll never have space in your heart for me. That you've never thought that I belonged with you the same way that I thought you belonged with me. That we'd never be the same after today, that we'd always just be stuck at the same stupid limbo of me working so hard to get your attention and convince you to stick with me, and you not listening to me?" 

Lance didn't reply. His brain stopped working, struggling to keep up with the mass of information flooding his synapses in one go. Matt didn't stop though - he continued, seemingly getting himself more worked up as he went on and on. "You- I've loved you for so damn long. And it feels like it all just culminated to this one year, with me on my third year and you on your second. You're so busy now, and all your attention's been swept up with the team and Allura, and I struggled to find a place to fit myself in to your schedule. Then we started hanging out with them more. And I realised - really belatedly, I might add - that they don't deserve your time. They don't deserve any of the work you put in for them. Any of the sadness you've gone through this past year, all the stress you've had to work through, wasn't worth any of their time. They don't even know you, Lance! Do you know them? You don't smile anymore! You don't laugh, or have that same lively smirk that makes you look so handsome, or have that same carefree attitude in your walk anymore," Matt's voice broke, throat getting choked up with phlegm as tears streamed freely down his face. Lance could only stare helplessly at his crush breaking down in front of him. Lance had no clue Matt was going through so much distress on his behalf. Lance was oblivious to all the sadness he had been causing to the most important person in the world. 

"I make you happy Lance. I know I do. It's just- have you ever stopped to wonder that... just maybe? You belong with- with me? That you belong by me and Pidge's and Hunk's sides? That I- I could be the one you wake up in the mornings to? That I could be the one holding your hands through the school hallways? That I could be the one cheering you on for school games?" Matt stared at Lance then. His eyes fraught with desperation, searching through Lance's expression furiously for a sign. Lance's gaze softened. Lance reached out to brush aside a lock of Matt's chestnut hair, and cupped Matt's face. 

"I've wondered that more times than I could ever hope to count, Matthew Holt." And with a soft smirk at Matt's surprised expression, Lance finally leaned down, and kissed his love of 4 years. 

__________________________________________________________

"You really don't like Allura, huh?" 

"You better not have actually liked her, or I'll break up with you."

"We just got together! And anyway, I was stupid and was in some deep denial, okay? I was trying to ignore my feelings for you, and I think it just translated weirdly in my head-"

"Lance, I love you, but that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Matt, _love_ , you're stuck with me, unfortunately." 

**Author's Note:**

> that ending was bad but i hope you liked it anyway lmAo i'm a mess pls help me


End file.
